Wicking bed growers

Information

This group is dedicated to those who are interested and growing in wicking beds. Wicking beds in conjunction with aquaponics can enable us to grow just about every crop that cannot be grown in standard aquaponics. Lets discuss deign, operation and whatever aspect of wicking bed growing you can think of.

Our success with wicking bed growing using aquaponic system water for fertilizer has led us to integrate the beds into the system. We are experimenting with techniques and interested in what others…Continue

I know You wanted a soil-less mix, but I have found that the results are much better if You have some soil.

After filling my boxes with the mix, I sprinkle about 1 1/2 cups of slow release dolomite lime and sprinkle a thin covering of volcanic rock dust.

In the beds that i don't have hooked to my fish pond, I pour about 1 1/2 cups of 10/10/10 fertilizer into a women's knee-high stocking and stretch it over the middle of the box, then mound dirt over the top.

Paul, are you just saying that you now have duckweed growing? Well are you feeding those goldfish? You might be able to get rid of the duckweed by NOT feeding the fish for a time. The fish may get hungry enough to eat all the duckweed (provided they can get at it) and then you might get rid of the problem without having to kill everything and sterilize the pond to start over from scratch. Depending on how much duckweed and how many fish, it could take a few weeks. When I can tilapia I could get rid of a heavy cover of duckweed in a 16' by 3' tank by simply having a dozen tilapia in the tank and not feeding them any pellets for a week.

I have a 900 gal fish pond constructed in my back yard. This is our first summer in this home, having purchased it August of 2011. The previous owner had Koy in the pond, but left the pond with some small gold fish from a local PETCO.

Over the year we have add a few more gold fish to the pond, (The Grandkids love watching the fish.)

A few weeks ago I bought some cheap feeder fish from PETCO. These are small fry that are used for various purposes, mostly to start a goldfish bowl for kids and to feed other aquatic animals.

Well now I have cursed duckweed growing in my pond. Curses, I was going to attach the pond water to wicking and other grow beds.

Now, I have to decide whether remove and destroy everything in the pond, plants, fish and water. As far as I know, Duckweed has not spread to Western Washington and I am not about to be that change catalist!! Treating and disposing of fish, plants and 900 gallons of water is not going to be fun. I will have to think on the best approach.

Anyway, when you are thinking of using materials from out side your environment, be supremely aware of all inputs. I am just Grateful that this happened before I had spent the bucks for my complete system. Don't fall into the trap that killing poor innocent anything is bad. Sometimes we have to get a little brutal in order to protect the greater environment.

Hello Bob,Good to know that you are re-circulating the AP water. I have been using such re-circulating wicking beds in my AP systems and find that it really expands the horizon of what we can grow. Thank you Chris for setting up this thread and to all for keeping it active. Learning a lot of excellent information :-)God bless